Online Journal of the Hudson Valley Coalition for Life.
"Every human being is called to solidarity in a world battling between life and death" - Ignacio Ellacuria, Jesuit martyr in El Salvador

November 16, 2012

Leading all-out pro-death philospher Peter Singer speaking at Fordham; is this stupid, or is it us?

You know, us prolifers. The talk is tonight, Friday November 16th.

Just days after Fordham University’s president Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J.
determined that conservative author Ann Coulter was too “hateful and
needlessly provocative” to speak on campus, the University will tomorrow host the
pro-infanticide ethicist Peter Singer to speak at a conference entitled
“Conference with Peter Singer: Christians and Other Animals: Moving the
Conversation Forward.”

The University certainly has a right to make a judgement on a political commentator, who of course is a conservative republican and therefore (in the view of Fr. McShane0 "hateful".

Here's what Fordham theologian Charles Camosy has to say justifying Singer's invite - hit the link for the whole thing:

Many Christians consider him (Singer) to be a leader of a
“culture of death”, especially given his very public support of
infanticide and euthanasia of the mentally disabled. Many disability
rights groups have come out strongly against his view. Singer
has been essentially silenced in German-speaking areas, where (given
their checkered past) they are especially unforgiving of those who
advocate for euthanasia. The last few times he has spoken in these areas
Singer has been shouted down so loudly that he could not deliver his
presentation. One time a protester leapt onto the stage, forcibly
removed Singer’s glasses, and stamped on them.

Much of the academy doesn’t like him either. Three years ago I
explained to one of my favorite senior ethicists that I was writing a
book on Singer and was even going to meet him for an (obviously) vegan
lunch in Manhattan. His reaction? “Be careful, Charlie, you’re going
to like him.” And yes, despite being a pro-life Christian ethicist, I
have come to like Peter Singer. Since that lunch-meeting I have debated
him twice in his courses at Princeton and he has presented in my
graduate bioethics seminar at Fordham; he and I gave the opening papers
at a conference at Oxford last year called Christian Ethics Engages Peter Singer; we organized and planned an international conference at Princeton
designed to find new ways to think and speak about abortion; and we are
currently working on planning an event that would challenge Christians
to take non-human animals far more seriously than we currently do.
Through all of these experiences I have found Singer to be friendly and
compassionate. He is willing to listen to an argument from almost
anyone, and is unburdened by any sort of academic pretension is so
doing. He is motivated by an admirable desire to respond to the
suffering of human and non-human animals, and an equally admirable
willingness to logically follow his arguments wherever they lead.

But this is all consistent with Christians still considering Singer
our enemy. After all, he attacks many of the vulnerable populations
Christians are called to defend. He has criticized a Christian ethic as
incoherent and dependent on pretense. He claims that the West needs
another “Copernican Revolution” to fully extricate ourselves from the
stranglehold of Christianity.

But in my new bookPeter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization, I
show that the disagreements between us are remarkably narrow. Though
Singer is pro-choice for infanticide, on all the numerous and
complicated issues related to abortion but one (it turns out to be
complex argument about the moral value of “active” potential vs.
“passive” potential), Peter Singer sounds an awful lot like Pope John
Paul II.

Comments

Through all of these experiences I have found Singer to be friendly and compassionate. He is willing to listen to an argument from almost anyone, and is unburdened by any sort of academic pretension is so doing.